


No Miracle

by Mandibles



Series: Scerek Week [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2012-11-08
Packaged: 2017-11-18 05:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/557391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandibles/pseuds/Mandibles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scerek Week, Day Six: Sacrifice.  Derek has been a strange figure in Scott's life for the past few months. He’s been the one focus of equal parts scorn and pity from Scott, but this … He never wanted this. He never, ever, ever wanted this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Miracle

Scott never expected this. Not once in a million million years did Scott ever expect this. But that doesn’t change that he’s here now, curled in one of the corners of the Hale house, the reek of fire and death and blood scrunching his nose, because it’s closer here, it’s here cradled in his arms. Derek’s head, shoulders, are heavy in his lap, eyelids pale and blue-lined where skin isn’t scorched to a red pulp. He feels numb as they sit here together; Scott strains to hear every wet, rattling breath that barely passes Derek’s slack lips.

And, it kills him, really  _kills_  him, because Derek can’t even leave him with last words. He’s too far gone; he can only wheeze and cough now. He wasn’t able to say anything when Scott found him sprawled across old floorboards, reddened by the deep spill of blood from burns and blackened by the dark ooze from the wolfsbane bullets. When Scott ran to him, promised to take him to Deaton, to make him better—when he promised to keep him alive—Derek had only answered with blank human eyes and a slight shake of head.

That’s how they end up here, Scott clutching the limp body in his arms while Derek takes in his last few breaths.

Derek … Derek has been a strange figure in his life for the past few months. He’s been the one focus of equal parts scorn and pity from Scott, but this …

He never wanted this. He never, ever, ever wanted this.

But, he just doesn’t feel anything: there’s no sadness, no grief, no anger, no nothing. He’s lost in this strange, heavy haze, like swimming blindly though warm mud and sludge. There’s only filth and death and things that he can taste on the back of his tongue, choking him, gagging him, as someone—Derek—dies in his arms. Scott knew the second he approached Derek, pulled him into his lap, that he was gone. It was too late for him. Still he can’t—he can’t bring himself to let him go; his mind still reels for ideas, things they could do to make things right, but there’s nothing. Nothing. And, it isn’t fair.

So, he talks. He doesn’t know if Derek needs it, wants it, yet it feels like the right thing to do.

He carts gentle fingers through is hair, scratch slightly at his scalp as he mumbles nonsense about his day, about how his mom has to work night shift again and she was so happy when she’d brought her her favorite dinner—lasagna—in a paper bag; he tells him how they got to deliver sweet little puppies at the clinic today, pink and black-speckled little things; and he tells him that—that—he’s never hated him, never, not really; he’d been hurt and confused and stubborn and stupid, but he could never bring himself to hate Derek no matter how hard he tried and this isn’t right, this isn’t fair, and he’s so, so sorry, if there was anything he could do to stop this, change this, make things—everything—right for Derek, he would, he would he would he would—

His eyes start to burn, tears filling his eyes and streaming down his cheeks and curling, dripping off his chin onto his hands, Derek’s face. The sobs that leave Scott are wet and loud and throat-wrecking, and he swears he hasn’t cried this hard since that last argument—battle, really—between his mom and dad so many years ago. Dragging Derek close and dropping their foreheads together, rocking as he groans his despair against him, seems natural, right, and he clings and clings and clings until he feels it.

 A hand, rough from burnt, torn skin that can’t heal, ghosts over the curve of his cheek.

Scott blinks, clears his vision enough to see Derek’s eyes open, lips moving, trying to form words. He leans forward, eager to catch anything Derek wants to offer him, but it’s not what he expects.

“Kill me.”

It’s cracked and soft, almost not there.

Wide-eyed, Scott stares and his face twists in horror. “W-What? No! I couldn’t—I could never—”

“You have to,” Derek manages a little firmer, claws digging into Scott’s cheeks. “You have to, Scott. You—You have to be Alpha.” His eyes glow red, then dim. “Quick, before I—You have to—You have—”

Scott squeezes his eyes shut, then, a whimper tearing from his throat, he nods. “Okay. Okay, I—How do you want me to—” He quiets when that cold, weak hand clambers for the hand cradling his head. Derek directs his hand towards his throat and Scott knows what to do. But, he doesn’t—he can’t—

But, he has to.

Scott wraps his hand around Derek’s throat with trembling fingers, hyperaware of the Adam’s apple against his palm. He freezes when Derek leans into the touch after he adds the barest of pressure.

“Scott,” Derek hisses.

And, Scott doesn’t breath, doesn’t think, just pushes their lips together as he squeezes, hard. Derek chokes, body spasms, but then goes limp surprisingly fast. It’s all so fucking simple and quick, like a snap of his finger. When Scott draws back with the hot rush of fresh tears, Derek’s face is relaxed, still. There’s still that damned crease between his brows, but Scott makes quick work of it even as the thrum of newfound power tingles through his limbs. He smooths it with a thumb, because he needs to believe that this is what Derek wanted, that Derek really was at peace with the last moments of his life.

He goes rigid at the creak of floorboards; he jerks his head up and greets Peter with a flash of red, a low growl. Scott pulls Derek’s body to him protectively, possessively.

Peter, for once, doesn’t humor him with a smile or a leer. His expression is blank, inflection flat when he says, “He’s gone.”

After a second, Scott nods. “Yeah.”

“You’re Alpha.”

And, that was just as anticlimactic. “Yeah, I am.”

A moment passes, their eyes drawn to the quiet form Scott continues to cling to, then Peter nods, too,  breathes, “I’ll help you bury him.”

Mind reeling from the smell of death, the feel of death, taste of death on his lips from that last, frantic moment he really can’t comprehend or explain and hopes Peter cannot smell, Scott fights back the tears but doesn’t wipe away the wet tracks down his face.

“Thank you.”


End file.
